Pan im Kinderreigen, around 1884

CommentaryFollowing the Symbolist taste of his times, Arnold Böcklin devoted many of his paintings to subjects from Classical Antiquity. Dancing children with a faun and putti were featured in the composition Die ›Götter Griechenlands‹ (The Greek Gods), a work painted for the collector Adolf Friedrich von Schack in 1869. In ›Pan im Kinderreigen‹ (Pan Dancing with Children), Böcklin lends the motif a special twist by equipping the god Pan with a transverse flute instead of his more usual panpipes. The shepherds worshipped Pan as the god of the forests and fields and sought his protection for their flocks. His favorite abode was said to be on Mount Lycaeum in Arcadia, where he indulged in the love of music, dance, and good cheer for which he was famous. This wild dance by naked children with garlands of flowers in their hair would doubtless have been part of such bucolic festivities.